The
Myth of Palestinian Development by Khalil Nakhleh. (Palestine:
www.PASSIA.org, April 2004), 223 pp. (English). Arabic version
published by www.MUWATIN.org

The
issue of Palestinian development has been in the limelight for sometime
now. For over a decade, billions of taxpayer dollars from countries around
the globe have been flooding into one of the smallest yet-to-be countries,
the Palestinian Authority (PA). In year 2004, the Palestinian people have
become the largest per capita recipient of foreign aid in the world. Yet,
Palestine is not only unable to move forward in its development process
toward statehood, but rather, any achievements that have been made thus far
are being unraveled while donor funds continue to flow unabated. As Dr.
Khalil Nakhleh illustrates in
The Myth of Palestinian Development,
this process of “de-developing” Palestine is not haphazard or a strike of
bad fate, but rather an externally planned systematic approach to the
Palestinian reality that Palestinians must reverse.

The Myth of
Palestinian Development, as stated by the author, “is not an attempt to
find a ‘magi­cal’ recipe for how things should be done in order to ensure
the ‘desired’ development of Palestinian society.” Dr. Nakhleh rightly
believes that, “no such thing [‘magi­cal’ recipe] is possible. Anyone who
claims the contrary is, in the best situation, unaware and unappreciative of
the complexities of the ‘development’ process, and, in the worst, part of a
premeditated process of deceit generated by a chorus of development ‘agents
provocateurs' to maximize self-benefits.”

From the book’s
subtitle, which is “Political Aid and Sustainable Deceit,” and throughout,
the reader is forced to think deeper than the superficial headlines of
today’s media coverage of Palestine. Dr. Nakhleh puts the context of the
Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence into today’s world of
“globalization and trans-nationalization,” something few Palestinian
analysts address. He states, “If the function of the nation-state is being
redefined in the context of globalization, then the entire concept of
national sovereignty and national interests needs rethinking.” Taking such
a step back from the day-to-day atrocities in Palestine is crucial if
Palestinians are to be able to position themselves in a way to actually
realize the fruits of their struggle.

Soberly linking
today’s world dynamics with current Palestinian development toward
statehood, Dr. Nakhleh states: “Stability in the region, the creation of
conducive conditions for globalized production, and the mobility of
transnational capital are the primary objectives and concern of the
interventions, not genuine Palestinian development.”

After a critical
reading of the book and internalizing it with my own personal experience in
the Palestinian struggle during the period being covered, 1984 – 2001, I can
attest that Dr. Nakhleh spectacularly reveals the inner workings of an
entire donor industry that has been built around the catastrophic
predicament of the Palestinian people -- an industry that is sustained by
the so-called ‘peace process’ and previously by the so-called ‘revolution.’

The Myth of
Palestinian Development is a focused biography that takes a deep and
serious look into how two funding agencies, in particular, and the entire
donor community in general, including pre-Oslo Palestinian and Arab donors,
view and act toward Palestinian development. The book takes a unique
approach by surveying the Palestinian de-development process through his own
work experience with the two most significant developmental agencies of the
pre and post-Oslo periods, The Welfare Association (1984-1992) and the
European Commission (1993-2001).

The Welfare
Association, a Swiss-registered non-profit organization, established in
1983, was the first serious attempt by a few wealthy Palestinians to foster
Palestinian development. Dr. Nakhleh takes the reader through the maze of
the fund’s alliances -- largely governmental linked -- and provides samples
of various interventions and how those interventions were diverted from
developmental-based to emergency-based during the first intifada.

Dr. Nakhleh believes
that the Palestinian capitalists’ “tendency to push towards becoming more
‘mainstream responsive’ and much less ‘developmental,’” put the real work of
developing Palestine based on future needs in total disarray. The author
gives a sample of development under Israeli occupation during the 1980s and
describes the complexities of financially supporting Palestinians during the
first intifada while the Israeli military was fully tracking where
interventions were being made and by whom. Currently living in the occupied
territories myself, I feel that remembering the lessons of the 1980s now is
a timely lesson since Palestine seems to be heading into another era of
clandestine development in the face of recrudescent oppression.

Reviewing how the
first Gulf War shook the region and in particular the Palestinian mode of
operation, Dr. Nakhleh boldly addresses the Welfare Association’s board
–some of the wealthiest Palestinians in the world – as utilizing their
‘privileged communications channels’ to veer the development process from an
institutional and need-based intervention to a personalized, nepotistic
approach that favored appeasing the powers-to-be. This step away from
professional management made the Association loose its core potential to
affect its declared goals of true national development.

During the post-Oslo
period, a flurry of donor pledges, commitments, and disbursements (three
very different items, as described in this book) were made by the world
community who took upon themselves to intervene on behalf of Palestinian
development. Again, through Dr. Nakhleh’s firsthand experience with the
largest donor to Palestine, the European Union (EU), he describes in detail
how this aid flow failed to foster development, and in reality contributed
to de-developing Palestine.

As stated by the EU,
the “political input and economic contribution has been the determining
element for the survival of the Palestinian Authority,” Dr. Nakhleh asks,
“Is it, for example, the type of ‘survival’ that the EC [European
Commission] aid offers that hooks entire PA institutions to a ‘life
sustaining machine,’ which manages to inject intravenously small, yet steady
doses of cash to keep the entire public sector afloat?”

Dr. Nakhleh provides
noteworthy insight into the people through which the development funds were
channeled; he calls them the “New Mercenaries.” “The New Mercenaries are a
rapidly emerging category of global professional hustlers, who compete via
the international media to sell their ‘expertise’ and ‘experience’ to the
highest bidder…They roam about unhindered by national boundaries or
limitations…The New Mercenaries are the ‘nomads’ of globalized economies and
societies, and the ubiquitous hallmark of development projects. They are
transient; only a few of them experience the repetition of seasons in the
same place. Thus, they rarely see the results of their work.” Anyone
visiting Palestine these days will find these international consultants --
“New Mercenaries” – in every aspect of Palestinian life -- politics,
security, economy, education, etc. – all holding VIP cards and freely
passing through Israeli military checkpoints with 4x4 sport utility vehicles
in one of the most deprived and unfree places in the world. It is
unfortunate that the Palestinians alone are being held responsible for their
statehood building misgivings, when in reality, donor money and donor-picked
consultants are really in the ‘developmental’ driving seat.

Dr. Nakhleh’s does not
only characterize the problem, but offers ideas for how to move ahead. He
notes, “I want to examine whether the genuine development for which we – at
least I am – aspiring, is at all feasible in a non-sovereign context.” This
issue of sovereignty is in the forefront of today’s debate. As stated in
the book, “‘Autonomy’ began to be perceived by the newly constituted PA as
tantamount to ‘sovereignty.’” As the author accurately notes, “The degree
of whatever sovereignty it [the PA] possessed was determined, de facto,
by Israel, and not by the Accords it had signed.”

“Not once, through the
stretch of the last hundred years, were the Palestinians in a real and
effective position to decide on the context of intervention in Palestine.”
He also adds: “The two times when they had the potential of insisting on the
inclusion of positive societal developmental ingredients, during the second
half of the 1980’s and the mid-1990s, they failed to do so at all levels:
that of the ‘leadership,’ the community-based organizations, and the
‘nationalist capital.’” The challenge ahead for Palestinians is huge indeed
and Dr. Nakhleh does not shy away from starting to address it.

The two agencies under
review are analyzed by the historical origins of each of their involvements
in Palestine, the strategy of intervention they adopted, a review of each
agencies record of intervention, the agencies decision structure, and the
writer’s assessment. The actual records of interventions are supported with
excerpts from the author’s field notes and reports at the time, an
invaluable window into history.

One full chapter is
dedicated to a comparison of twelve basic developmental variables (pre and
post-Oslo periods) along with the author’s candid opinion of each agencies
role in the development process. The 17 years discussed in the analysis
cover the historical period that has defined today’s struggle for
Palestinian independence.

The final chapter is
where Dr. Nakhleh puts the bulk of his critical assessment and proposes what
needs to be done. Presenting the topic as a researcher, a practitioner and
a Palestinian citizen under occupation, one comes away with an array of
issues as food for thought, or as Dr. Nakhleh would agree, food for action.

Specific steps are
noted to “‘indigenize’ the objectives” of Palestinian development. Some are
rather specific steps, such as the elimination of the Economic Council for
Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), the agency that the donor countries
created prior to Palestinian ministries and bureaucracy being set up. Dr.
Nakhleh terms this agency as, “the vestige of the World Bank and the
externally imposed agendas.”

Dr. Nakhleh calls for
“societal participation” in the developmental planning process of
Palestine. A difficult task for sure, but one Dr. Nakhleh says “cannot be
attained by simply embellishing the existing structure.” He asserts that
“the requirements must be internal, structural and systematic; they must be
transformational, and relate directly to the Palestinian system of
governance.”

In summary, Dr.
Nakhleh coins what needs to be done as “indigenous empowerment” and the
target of empowerment squarely being “the ordinary Palestinian person.”

Having read The
Myth of Palestinian Development immediately after reading Prof. Francis
A. Boyle’s new book Palestine, Palestinians and International Law
(Clarity, 2003), which reveals another set of continuous strategic faults of
the Palestinian leadership through the eyes of a practitioner, like Dr.
Nakhleh, who was dealing in the realm of international law, working with the
‘trees’ while still being able to see the ‘forest’. Both books are
absolutely crucial to the broader understanding of why the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict is where it is today. The incompetency and
disregard toward Palestinian planning, particularly in the legal and
developmental aspects, bring one to the bold conclusion that serious
internal restructuring is required within the Palestinian liberation
movement before any real progress will be realized in ending the illegal
Israeli occupation and establishing the State of Palestine.